Coming Soon To Your Grocery Store: “Intelligent” Food Packaging

Better food packaging with fewer environmental impacts is the goal of new research by Dr. Loong-Tak Lim at the University of Guelph.

Imagine food packaging that changes colour once the product has passed its “best before” date. That possibility – and hundreds more like it – are one step closer, thanks to researchers like Dr. Loong-Tak Lim at the University of Guelph and his investigations into active and intelligent food packaging.

Packaging plays a vitally important role in the Ontario food distribution chain, ensuring that products remain safe to eat in the sometimes long journey from the processing or production site to your kitchen table. With the growth of global food markets, the quality of food packaging becomes even more critical as shipping distances become greater and transport conditions less predictable. Better packaging means improved food safety for consumers and less spoilage for the food industry.

Today, more than ever, food packaging technology is big business and the focus of intense research efforts. Dr. Lim and his team recently received $84,418 from the McGuinty government’s Ontario Research Fund, a program of the Ministry of Research and Innovation, to help buy new laboratory equipment so they can develop and test innovative new “intelligent” food packaging technologies and new, biodegradable packaging materials.

The research grant was welcomed by Dr. Lim, who said, “We are now in a strong position to compete internationally in packaging research.”

The immediate goal of Dr. Lim’s team is to develop a new packaging material that can extend the shelf life of bags of milk, wine and other liquids. They are taking nano-fibres – fibres that are 50 to 500 times smaller than a human hair – and electro-spinning them to form a film that can be embedded with active ingredients.  As a result, the film can change colour when exposed to oxygen or bacteria. The team is testing various natural by-products from corn and soy to find a biodegradable source for the tiny nano-fibres.

“Many researchers are hoping to develop a biodegradable package that can replace petroleum-based materials,” said Dr. Lim. “The challenge is that most biodegradable materials are not yet as robust as the food distribution chain demands. There are some gaps in our understanding that need to be filled.”

The use of electro-spun nano-fibres in active food packaging is a new field of discovery. Dr. Lim is working with scientists at DuPont Canada’s research centre in Kingston, Ontario, to develop applications that can stand the rigors of real-world environments.

The intriguing possibilities of the project have also drawn the interest of researchers at the University of Waterloo and the Michigan State University School of Packaging.

And they aren’t the only ones interested in this kind of research. Ontario is home to 3,700 food processors that employ 110,000 people and contribute more than $30 billion to the economy. Ontario food products are exported around the world and food imports fill the shelves of grocery stores across the province.

That means there are a lot of eyes around the world that are on the lookout for products that provide a competitive advantage. Intelligent food packaging has great potential to succeed in the global food packaging industry.